Jenny in Kenya

E.D.P was today's morning session and for the first time I was a 'sponge presser' and the paper came out surprisingly well. We had a bit of a team tusker sing song with such classics as 'build me up buttercup' Skinny neck's presence is noted on numerous occasions...skinny neck being one of our fantastic guards with a particularly skinny neck. Even Stevie has started calling him Skinny neck.

Once again we are spoilt with food today and breakfast consists of not only pancakes, but sausages, eggs and everything else that is usually given to us! After a lot of talking about chocolate we are also given banana fritters with a custard chocolate sauce for our lunch dessert...you heard me...CHOCOLATE SAUCE!

Today's afternoon session was at the women's group and I'm glad we had no idea of what we were going to be doing because it was one of the hardest yet rewarding sessions so far. After another shoulder dance, we dug numerous large ditches in groups of three, to create vegetable patches for the local people. Me, Lauren and Kiera only went and chose the largest ditch! Typical! Over the next few hours we all dug basin like ditches and then filled the 'basin's' with plant mulch. Later that week, compost would be created by adding loman soil and then manure which as a mix would decay slowly when water was poured into the ditch. It felt amazing to actually finish something whilst working alongside the locals and our farewell dance was pretty emotional for me. As a celebration of our time with the ladies most of the group bought Kanga's and I bought mine from Mama Chipatti our resident women around the camp and a member of the womens group. Its a lovely stipey number and we are all going to dress tribal in our Kanga's for the last night at the elephant sanctuary tomorrow night.

I was so filthy when we got back from the village that I had to have a shower and with Nadia in the next shower along from me, another peep hole incident occurred! Very funny seeing her eye appear. :D

xxx

Woke up with a banging headache today. Must get painkillers!!! I could hear Nadia (at 6.30) fully dressed and borrowing the teaching books from Tina so that she could revise our lessons! Somebody needs to stop that girl! Knowing that she was fully dressed I attempted to dress at super-sonic speeds so that I could revise as well, but I just ended up panicking with Tina rather than doing anything productive at breakfast. Epic fail. Tina reminds me so much of my Auntie Denice its unbelievable and her mannorisms are spot on.

Once we arrive at the school all the teachers are ushered to the staff room where we are offered tea, coffee and small triangle dounut things. Now i say offered but it soon becomes clear that we must eat and drink everything. The tea is literally boiling so we wait to drink and I find it hard not to wet myself when one of the teachers suggests Ann pours her tea into a saucer to cool it down.....she promptly asks "are you serious?"....he was.

Beginning to feel rather sicky, very worried about teaching. After about 15 minutes in the staff room we are lead into our classroom and inside we have quite a shock! The faces are very old indeed and my hands are shaking like crazy, with the rain pelting down on the metal room not helping my nerves. We have to scream out heads off to be heard over the rain and with not many of the 'children' (/young adults) responding to our questions we decide the drug song is not going to go down well at all. The whole hour rushes by but by the time we are finished the three of us feel a lot more confident about teaching out next class, that is until we bump into the mathematicians on their way to our class....they promptly inform us that class 6 has been crawling all over the desks during their lessons. When the teacher leaves us to it in class 6, the confidence is sucked out of us, but I quickly find that talking is stopped abruptly by clapping three times VERY loudly. We don't run out of things to say once and the whole experience feels very beneficial for us and the children as we are teaching them about a topic that is very rarely talked about here in the local area. Apart from one particularly hilarious ten minutes when Nadia wouldn't stop banging on about female menstruation in the most passionate tones and me and Tina had to turn and face the board, I think we pulled a fairly great lesson out of the bag! I even used my globe ball to help the children get more involved....thank you very much uni lot for that ball!

Personally I am very much ready to teach in Diani after this amazing experience!

In the afternoon we were able to go on a game drive for the first time in what feels like ages as Rusty is back with us at the camp! HORAY! On the way to the travellers camp (bar/watering hole) we spot the closest elephants so far! A really big male leads the heard and I wish I had my camera so much! The colours are so gorgeous driving around at this late time of day and they are perfectly accompanied by Athlete on the ipod. Perfection. There's a gorgeous blue sky and bright green plants on the way there and an amazing blanket of stars on the way back and I feel the happiest I've felt in ages!

I'm going to miss the sights and sounds of Africa!

xxxx

It was back to the school today to finish off the brick making. After mixing more soil we moved on to digging the foundations for the kitchen. The holes for the wall had to be dug which was rather challenging for everyone, so much so that Ann sliced Bryony's leg with her shovel! Everyone was in a bad mood and Ann and Bryonny used the shovel incident as an excuse to laze under the tree for a long looonnnnggggg time, which I found very amusing. The foundation digging was made extra hard by the fact that the children's parents who had come to 'help', chose to stand over the holes and chat. Not having a translate button is often rather annoying, expecially when people are talking in an animated way, laughing and pointing at you and immediatly stopping when you turn to look at them. Sarah in particular got really annoyed and had to stop digging for a bit because it was so off putting. Stevies wise words "you can help, and help, and help, but once you take the hand away, the people dont often help themselves" comes to mind......surely the community, given materials and volunteer help would leap at the chance to develop. It seems that this is a slow process.

At lunch we decided that the first teachers to be given classes tomorrow would be me, Tina, Nadia, Lauren, Ann and Kiera and later that afternoon we were all called to the staff room for a preperation session. The arts is frowned upon here and so we have the choice of Science or maths. GREAT! Me, Tina and Nadia latched immediatly onto sciences, little did we know what was ahead........ So we were to teach primary 6 & 7 before lunch tomorrow and once again we thought we were being really clever choosing an 'easy' sub-topic of drugs for 7 and the reproductive system for 6. The teacher seemed keen for us to teach these topics and Ann told us that the children she had taught abroad before had been very serious and interested in such topics. We were very overly confident.

As soon as the team got back to the camp for tea, me, Tina and Nadia (otherwise known as team Science), got to work to complete a lesson plan before tea. Tea came and went and we were half way through the first lesson. Six hours later we were about to complete the lesson plans!

• DRUGS - What is the meaning of the word drugs?

- What is the misuse of drugs?
- Why do people abuse drugs?
- Health effects?
- Social effects
- Revision questions

• Reproductive Systems*

- Male/Female systems
- Female diagram with labels/part descriptions
- Male diagram with labels/part descriptions
- Adolescance, physical changes
- Emotional changes
- Recap

I'm glad a ended up in a group with Tina. I feel like I havn't spoken to her as much as others and its been fantastic to get to know her better. She's not so good to be teaching the reproductive system with though.....she laughs at the word ejaculation when I'm trying to do a serious bit and must repeat all the other part name before entering the classroom to get it out of her system. :D A few quotes from our teaching prep included......

Nadia - "Wet dreams!..... [said with glee] I can talk about them....Nick......oh never mind!"

Tina - "...as a learning chant....you say coke.....we say cane....COKE....CANE...COKE...CANE!"

Stevie - "You must be serious.......[serious face while describing with passion a female reproductive system and pointing at a male diagram]"

I'm not sure I'd be good as a secondary school science teacher but Nadia is being really enthusiastic as usual and it is building up mine and Tina's confidence a bit. Nadia draws on personal experiences from home that the children will be interested to hear which is good.

We drag ourselves to bed but not before we dedice to change our topic to the solar system Nadia suggests we use the "My Very Easy Mother......"....we think we should stick with drugs. !

xxx

Today we were goat de-worming again. Stevie told us that it wasn't a far walk which was a bit of a lie. It was a BIG walk and we moaned half joking all the way. Everyone really enjoys seeing the goats but Katie hates de-worming and its quite painful to watch...not a very interesting morning all in all. I still feel like the villagers could do this themselves given the medicine.

It was the tree nursery in the afternoon and we got to chat to the children again as they sat and watched us work. They kept repeating what we were saying, especially every time we said "Nadia", apparently it means to eat or something. Very funny listening to them imitate us and now they wont stop saying Naadddiaa in a funny Australien accent as well as Tinaaa and Sarah.

After we had finished at the tree nursery for the day we went to find out more about the Alovera Soap product The Conservation Club (Mr. Musa and co.) make at the school. We all sat down in the nursery classroom on tiny chairs listening to Mr.Musa's speech about the soap which all in all was rather funny as he really wanted us to buy the soap, which of course we would...we didnt need persuading. His speech included such classics as....

• "one bar for you, one bar for your mother, one bar for your father, one bar for your sister, one for your brother, one for your dog, one for your gran and one for your grandad"

• "do you have a boyfriend?..." *loud gasp* "NO?!?!" *big pause* "the soap will get you one!"

• "dont mind about the labelling......it was made by children!.....and having a label will get the soap through customs!"

Basically the students produce and package the soap in order to create a profit for the school and for the conservation club and it seems like a good way of generating an income. I wish I hadnt been in stiches listening to Mr.Musa though...i couldnt look Katie in the eye.

The important thing is I bought three...for me my mother and father. ha ha. :D I only hope we dont go green when we wash.

xxx

Woke up feeling particularly moody for the first time since I got here but it was ab easy Sunday which made things better. In the morning Lonya a.k.a Mamma Chipatti taught us how to make chippati's....the greatest doughy creation since sliced bread but very fatty indeed, mainly because the Kenyan's put so much salt into them.

Chipatti Recipe - Makes approx 30.

INGREDIANTS

1/2 a litre of vegetable oil (heated)
1 litre of water (warm)
1/2 a handful of salt
2 litres of plain flour

METHOD

Heat 1/2 a litre of oil in a frying pan.

In a bowel mix 3/4 of flour, salt, 1/8 of the oil and gradually add the water whilst kneeding it all together. (The rest of the flour is for dusting.) Kneed it so it becomes a ball of elastic playdough.

Cut the doe into thirds and roll it out until its 1cm thick. Then place 3 tablespoons of oil onyo each disk, fold, and cut into strips.

Fold out the strips and roll them into spirals, then lock the end strip into the middle. Take the top bit off and roll out. Repeat until all the mixture is used.

Place a dry frying pan under a low heat and make sure they dont have too much excess flour. When the oil bubbles place the mixture into the pan and flip. Place a tablespoon of oil on each side and continue flipping until golden brown. When finished dry the pan.

Was so lovely just to have a lazy day and not do much. Lazed out in the sun after chipatti making and prayed to god the the sun would tan me....not looking as tanned as I would have hoped as I always find after working you just need to be in the shade. I have learnt that Laurens birthday is the 9th of May and Nadia's is the 24th of december. MUST REMEMBER. not very good at remembering.

We went to the poo paper 'factory'/room after lunch but I didn't make anything this time. I already have an envelope, a photo book and a notebook!!! I 'observed' everybody else to prepare for teaching on Wednesday.

Ann's mosquito bite on her leg is worryingly still in pain and Stevie is still insisting on cleaning and treating it. Fingers crossed she wont have to go to hospital. Surprisinly, later when DJ Andrew pulled up at camp, in his boogie van, with the music blasting, she started to dance like a maniac, so at least she can still find the energy in her leg to dance. The staff were such good fun and everyone was up on the floor pulling some shapes. It came to everybody's attention that I cannot dance to save my life! Embaressing! Stevie had us going round in circles imitating elphants and 'regulating our temperatures'. After all that dancing it was time for bed.

xxxxx